I started this game as someone who had never played the original Live a Live and as a massive fan of Octopath Traveler, and by golly, this game captured me in a way I haven't felt in a good long while. Besides the HD-2D standards of gorgeous visuals and a wonderfully orchestrated soundtrack, I loved each of the scenarios (except for Distant Future because big monster scary) and how they all came together in the end. I do have a couple gripes with the game - namely the archaism of SNES JRPGs that they brought over to the remake (the """minimap""" helps but only sometimes), and the overuse of some songs, primarily the game's main theme which lost a lot of impact for me at the endgame - but those were both most certainly hardware limitations that they retained for authenticity's sake, and I can respect that. Overall though, my rating for this game comes from the fact that I no-lifed (for lack of a better term) this game all weekend, which is an extreme rarity for my short attention span brain, and for me, proves that Live a Live was (and still is) a masterpiece. I can feel the love and care put into this project, and I'm really excited for the upcoming DQIII remake and whatever other projects Team Asano has in store, because they nailed this one on the head. Easily my favorite 2022 release thus far, and a hard recommend whether you've played the original or not.

"Whatever happens... We'll survive. That's what we do."

i am so glad i decided to play this masterpiece of a game. from the second i booted it up and saw that intro sequence, it's been an incredibly special experience with characters that endear you to themselves and their motives quicker and more effectively than most other rpgs of the time and telling a story just as good as them too. the anthology style of small stories being told with hints of connection for it all to come together is incredibly special, definitely my new all time favorite, and i don't think i'll get over how much i loved the new true ending.

if all that wasn't enough, the japanese cast is literally the biggest collection of all star voice actors in anything i've ever seen, it's insane. you also have the spectacular score by yoko shimomura, which is easily some of her best work. there is not a single song in this game that isn't a complete banger, and she captures the genre and setting of each era perfectly. megalomania and the battle themes for present day and near future are favorites of mine, but even the main theme is nothing short of perfect.

as it is now, i have to stop myself from starting a new playthrough of this game every week or so because my backlog is so huge, but i know i'm going to fall in love all over again experiencing it all a second time.

for anyone wondering, my favorite segments were the final chapter, near future, present day, wild west, and distant future (all of them are great though, these 5 are just the ones i think of the most)

* edited on 9/15/22 to expand on my thoughts about the game

A neat collection of short stories cumulating into a fantastic bad and good end. The game does a great job at getting you to care about characters within the 1-2 hours that most of these stories run for and each story manages to feel unique from the rest, each with it's own particular gimmick.
Ultimately, because you can pick any story at any time, the initial 7 stories have to be accessible enough to be anyone's first story and that means they never really get the depth they could have gotten. They feel more like a tutorial to learn the game for the finale where everything comes together and that's fine, but personally I would've liked a bit more.

Live A Live is a fine game, one that experiments well with it's ideas and I can see why it's highly regarded amongst those who played the original, it's just unfortunate that it never clicked with me on that kind of level

The game is difficult to judge, because one has to think of it from the perspective of a remake that modernizes almost only the technical aspect of a game that, in 1994, was certainly futuristic and experimental on the SNES, but in 2022 pays the price for old-fashioned naiveté. It remains an entry-level RPG that stands out for its wide variety of scenarios and gameplay dynamics, and might appeal to those looking for a contained title to chug along while waiting for the big boys, or who want to do an all in the past to bask in nostalgia.

Each chapter was really distinct and had its own unique charm. 2 examples:
• Prehistory has no dialogue but it's very easy to tell what the story is via thought bubbles and good sprite animations.
• The way Present is presented feels like a retro fighting game (deposited that not at all being the case).

Story wise every chapter takes place in completely different eras with unique storylines that eventually connect via the final chapter. Want to explore a ancient world? Want to explore a futuristic horror space ship? Want to fight travelers from around the world? Want to teach martial arts pupils? Want to stop a gang? Want to save a wild west town? There's so many different storylines to try that all stand out from each other. There's surely at least one thing for everyone. My favorite is the Distant Future because I like its story and it kind has a very light horror tone (it's not scary tho so don't worry if that's something U don't like). My least fav to my surprise is the Edo Japan story. I love Japan and ninja stuff but it's a very easy to get lost in maze.

I'm really happy it got remade and finally got localized. It has tons of unique ideas that I haven't seen from other games. I'd highly recommend to anyone looking for a short RPG and I'd especially recommend to those that like time travel games like Chrono Trigger.

While I feel that this game is a very mixed bag of quality, it has so much charm, creativity, and variety that the occasionally weaker points don't hinder it too much for me. This remake looks great, and adds so much atmosphere and detail that it feels like a true evolution from the source material. The music is excellent, both in terms of composition and the rearrangement. This remake also adds quite a bit more information to make some confusing points of the original feel much better. The only thing I like less than what I've seen from the original is that each era has the same textboxes, instead of different fonts and cursors for each. Feels a bit lackluster in comparison. Overall though, as a remake, it's very successful. Now, for each chapter, in the order that I played it.

Prehistory: Probably my least favorite. I really like the simplistic story told without words, and crafting was kinda fun. But the pace is all over the place, with long bouts of combat or really long story segments. The difficulty also feels weird, and the gimmick of smelling enemies is just not that fun.

Wild West: Easily one of my favorites. The premise is great, it's really fun in execution, it feels tense, the balance of combat to exploration is great, excellent all around.

Near Future: Fun, but had a few weak spots. It felt overall too easy, and it had a few points where the player would have to run back and forth through the same area over and over. The plot is fun and the ending is really cool.

Distant Future: I like the more story focused direction this one takes. The mystery and horror elements elevate it a lot, but it could have made the monster that chases you more threatening. Gets a bit repetitive since a lot of the chapter is running back and forth, but once danger is added it's much less of an issue.

Edo Japan: Another excellent one. The combat here feels challenging and rewarding, and the game gives the player a lot of leniency for how they want to play it. The atmosphere is great, the tricks and traps of the dungeon are fun, great all around.

Imperial China: This one has a great idea, but I wish it was less repetitive. The goal is to find 3 apprentices and train them, before switching control to the strongest of them. This results in just fighting the same apprentice over and over, and there's no reason to train all 3. Still neat, and the beginning and end are quite cool. The middle's the only bit that drags.

Present: I like this one a lot. The tournament setup keeps things quick and varied, and trying to get your opponent to hit you to steal their moves is really fun. Another one of my favorites.

Middle Ages: It's cool, but goes on a bit long. Most of it feels somewhat standard, but the back half is really great and is super interesting for the overall story.

Final: This chapter rocks. It's all about exploring to recruit all of the previous protagonists, and then preparing yourself by doing mini dungeons that are all pretty varied and cool. Some are kind of annoying, but most are fun and unique. It reminded me a lot of ff6's second half, which grants you a lot of freedom with the ability to confront the final boss at any time. Also the evil version of the final chapter is super cool.

IN CONCLUSION: Yeah this game's sick. I do wish the remake was a bit harder across the board, since I didn't have much difficulty save a few bosses and the last chapter. Maybe some sort of scaling that makes each chapter harder the later you take it on? Anyways, game's cool. Might be more fitting to be a 7, but I dunno.

It's hard to know what to say about this. I'd already fallen in love with the SNES original, so from my own perspective, crediting the remake with what a good game LIVE A LIVE is feels redundant. But it's also good to know for the vast majority of people coming to it as their first experience with the game. I'll focus on the details of the remake here, since that's the perspective I'm bringing to the game. For reference I'd probably rate the original 4.5 stars, which in my journal tends to mean "beloved game with noticeable flaws".

The remake deals with most of those flaws handily. There are two overarching issues I'd ascribe to the SNES original. The first is opacity in the combat system - the effect of your moves is described in a single line of text, which is even more compressed in the fan translation due to the efficiency of Japanese. Each character has a whole host of moves to try and figure out what they do, and you don't stay with them long enough to really learn it. It was overwhelming. The remake updates the battle screen to have all the information you need in the UI - a much longer description, elements and status effects summarised by icons, and a tracker for enemy health and weaknesses. The combat feels so much better now that you can easily tell your moves apart and see when to apply them to weaknesses.

The other big issue was the old school JRPG event flag jank. Several chapters involve wandering from point to point trying to figure out what progresses the plot, with navigation sometimes being difficult and objectives unclear. The remake adds an objective radar to the screen. Much has been said of how objective markers are the scourge of modern game design etc etc but I think it works really well here. It only ever points to the main objective to progress the plot of the chapter, players are still expected to find things on their own where that was originally true, such as exploration in the Western and Ninja chapters. Otherwise, chapters are short and linear enough as a result of their bite-sized nature that it's not like there's some grand adventure they're spoiling.

With those issues solved, what about other improvements? Well, the new translation (and of course remember the fan translation was never official) is largely fantastic, though some the punch isn't quite there for some one-liners the Japanese community seems to love. This is presumably a result of SE's localisation policy being holistic rather than line-by-line, and overall I think that's a good thing, so this is just a natural trade-off with that approach.

It barely bears saying that the HD-2D style looks fantastic. What stands out here is how the enemy designs are fundamentally the same, compare and contrast any sprite with the SNES original, and it transfers so well to the style here. It's a perfect fit for the Octopath style of "tiny protag, giant boss", 24 years earlier.

To be completely honest, I was kind of unsure how I felt about the arranged OST from some of the trailers - but seeing it in practice, no, it's great. Shimomura's original compositions still stand up, and the new arrangements breathe them some fresh air for the modern era.

I don't want to get too into the weeds here but there were a host of small mechanical changes to individual things that I found were all improvements.

All in all, this is exactly the remake the game has always needed. It's the same fantastic core game, with a beautiful new presentation, and fixing the janky accessibility issues with the original. I couldn't be happier.

Wished more remakes had this much care and purpose. By "care" I mean doing smart and tasteful changes while keeping the original intent the same. And "purpose" since, being real, some games really don't need a remake. If it's a carbon copy of the original, that's still readily available, then a port would be more then enough (assuming the port is well done and not overpriced). Experiencing this for the first time after hearing much praise for its dedicated fan base was really exciting, and what do you know it's great just like they've said. Definitely different from the usual 90's RPGs, both in gameplay and especially the story and it's structure. Any fan of JRPGs should play this, try the demo even if you aren't sold yet.

EDIT: How in the hell did I forget to mention the music? It's a serious contender for the best RPG soundtrack. Megalomania alone is absolutely immaculate.

A great, varied, unique game with a wholesome message by the end of it. Takes a few turns I legitmately didn't expect.

Combat has more depth than you think. The more you get through the game, you realize that for it's time it was actually quite a good battle system. Though some bosses (like Present Day) go down with easy spamming.

My only real issue was probably the fact that I wasn't a huge fan of the Prehistory Chapter and the final chapter was a bit of a grind without much in the way of real story progression, coupled by a few annoying dungeons you should probably do for good weapons.

And you do wanna grind a bit. The final boss was actually quite tough, though I did beat it on my first try.

That being said I think the main strength this game has is offering a varried amount of gameplay experiences for a JRPG. Each chapter brings something different and new to the table, the music is stellar, some of the stories themselves stand up find on their own too, the localization and VA work are all great (English here, though the Japanese cast looks fucking stacked with great actors too.)

I think overall my favorites were Distant Future, Near Future, and the spoiler chapter because they each played into the game's storytelling strengths.

Sundown Kid is also a GOAT.

Oh and one other thing I gotta mention. Game looks fucking gorgeous. HD2D has peaked.

If your name starts with O!!!!!!!!! It is fucking on sight!!!!!!!!!!!

Live A Live is a cool game that is difficult to write a review about because the peak of the game is all in the spoiler territory. A short version is that the game is effectively 8 isolated short RPGs themed around different time peroids, only a few hours long each, with one final longer chapter to close the game out. While each story uses the same grid based + ATB mechanics battle system, each game's story has its own rules and progression. While Near Future and Prehistory are closer to a standard JRPG in progression, there are stories like modern age which is simply just boss fights, the wild west which is mostly just set up for one particular fight, or far future which.. doesn't have fighting at all! Each story has their own quirks out of their timespan, but the final arc really ties it together in a way that it doesn't feel like you grabbed a pile of itch.io rpgs and put it onto a cart.

Quality ranges between the games as you can expect, and oddly some stories kinda dragged for me, the combat has some good peaks but when you get to the chapters where random encounters happen I started to fall out of it. The game's also very easy for 90% of the game, sans a handfull of difficulty spikes (one of which was a me problem because i entered a section incredibly underleveled), but it's never bad enough that it's killer. Also, even though it's designed to be short 2-3~ hour a piece chapters, the shortness can leave you a little underwhelmed when you hit the end of some of them.

Also the game is remake. I am personally not a fan of the HD/2D style, but it'd be a lie to say the game doesn't have some great spriteworks and looks better than the original, often improving the atmosphere of sections. Some great art design really also carries it on its back as well.

Live a Live is a cool unique experience with some roughness, but unique experiences generally are. It's been 28 (!) years since the OG came out, and I can't think of another JRPG that tries that it does, and I think you owe it a playthrough. My mind kinda says it's a 3.5/5 instead of a 4 but fuck it I do what I want.

Far Future > Imperial China > Wild West > Middle Ages > Modern Age > Near Future > Edo > Prehistory